Former Paramount (PARA) executive David Nevins has found a new role as CEO of the North Road Company, a studio producing films and television shows. Nevins, 57, will be in charge of overseeing North Road’s assets—which include Red Arrow Studios, Chernin Entertainment and Words + Pictures—and leading acquisitions for new properties. He will work alongside Peter Chernin, the founder and executive chairman who previously worked as the CEO of Fox Group and chief operating officer of News Corp. North Road is backed by $800 million in financing from Providence Equity Partners and Apollo.
Nevins’s new job comes six months after leaving his previous one. He most recently worked as the chief content officer of scripted originals at Paramount+ and as chairman and CEO of Paramount Premium Group. In that role, he helped develop and distribute all scripted original productions for Paramount+, including Halo, The Offer and Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies. He also oversaw Showtime, BET and Paramount Television Studios. Nevins stepped down at the end of 2022, just one year after his promotion. He “never really had (greenlight) power at Paramount+,” he told the Hollywood Reporter.
Earlier this year, he made an offer worth more than $3 billion to buy Showtime, according to the Wall Street Journal. General Atlantic, a private equity firm, financially backed the executive, but Paramount turned him down.
Nevins joined Paramount in 2010 as entertainment president, where he pushed forward shows including Billions, the Twin Peaks revival and Homeland, which received an Emmy award in 2012. He also oversaw the launch of Showtime’s stand-alone streaming service. In 2018, Nevins advanced to the role of CBS chief creative officer.
He earned his undergraduate degree from Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Early in his career, Nevins rose through the ranks at NBC, where he became the senior vice president of primetime series. He worked on shows like ER and The West Wing, both of which have more than 20 Emmy awards. He left NBC for a brief stint at Fox, where he served as the executive vice president of programming and worked on Malcolm in the Middle. His time at Fox overlapped with that of Chernin.
From 2002 to 2010, he was the television president for Imagine Entertainment, the production company founded by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. At Imagine, he produced Arrested Development, Friday Night Lights and 24, all of which have won awards.
